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| By: hctomorrow Sunday February 28, 2010 10:37 am | |
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| By: hctomorrow Sunday February 28, 2010 10:37 am | |
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56 Comments
Laugh out loud funny! Because it’s true.
And you’re right; I’m longing for the “Atomic Drop” on Mitch McConnell.
Yeah, if we’re going to put up with this level of scripting, the least we can get is a few finishing moves.
This is an excellent analogy!
Thank you.
an interesting variant of a useful analogy, and quite well developed, lots of terminology well explained.
but, I don’t think the Republicans are another, rival league, rather it might be something like this:
the comparison of wrasslin’ with a Soap Opera is great, as is your description of the usages of the Boss character.
your use of prediction based on your model is also good, and indeed can be backtested a long way and you can see the same scripts running during the Clinton Administration. Remember, Clinton was “The Man from Hope?”
I think the Republicans and the Dems have been at many points a useful set of allied federations, to use this analogy. I don’t, however, think they currently are; it’s just business. The Dems got solid majorities in both houses of Congress, and the White House, and they didn’t feel the need to share much of the sponsorship money. Look at how much of a fundraising advantage the Dems had over the last couple of years – the Dem Federation was making a monopoly play (single party system), plain and simple.
The issue is that after getting a de facto monopoly, they lost viewer interest. So now the Republican Federation is gaining viewers. After this Fall, I expect they’ll have to return to the coalition model.
Finally, I had no idea that you’d already written this up, hehe. I saw that huge Martha Coakley thing at the time but I gave up on trying to read it all, it was such an immense flamewar. Convergent evolution I guess.
yeah, 600 comments, moving fast, that was a crazy one.
the analogy is fertile, and whether coalitional or rival federations, being able to apply patterns from WWF to the political realm will remain informative.
Sadly now the WWE instead of the WWF. I still don’t know what the World Wildlife Fund people were thinking with that suit; who’s going to confuse the two?
Good! This post is front paged!
OT, but important.
Election Systems is about to consummate its purchase of Diebold, after which it will control 70% of the electronic voting market nationwide. Only DOJ antitrust approval stands between now and actual consummation. The Times had a related editorial the other day, but the MSM has otherwise been silent. I guess they are waiting to tell us after the fact.
What could Antitrust possibly find wrong about a right-wing corporation with the worst performance record in the industry collecting and counting 70% of the votes?
Im sure that the blackbox website will, as usual, have the most definitive info on this, for those who still think electoral politics are relevant.
The politics are still entirely relevant while the measurement might be suspect.
by all means attack the measurements, but the politics remain valid.
indeed!
I am attacking the measurements. But it’s just another part of the argument that electoral politics is no longer relevant.
How about this thread doesn’t get hijacked, and we have a good laugh as well as a sober look at how this really can be compared to a WWF areana?
I am thinking particularly of Jesse Ventura!
In my sixth year my family moved from the south to the north/mid west. I quickly noticed this “wrestling’ phenomenon and remember pointing to it in front of adults asking why they were all acting so stupid like that?
And our new northern adult friends all looked at me like I was the alien.
This is the most apt political metaphor I’ve read all year.
Good one.
This is really good but like WWF, the demos are all about Show Me The Money. We’re doomed by both partys of corp.
Ha! TV Tropes used on Firedoglake. It’s like my Bookmarks stood up and made love to each other.
Ack, the mental image. Brain Bleach! Brain Bleach!!
Excellent analogy and surprisingly- scarily- accurate.
This whole fiasco makes one helluva lot more sense now. Thanks much for the primer.
Sure if you can laugh, go ahead. I would have thought that this info would be particularly disurbing to those who still want to work the system. As should be the metaphor on which this post is based.
Don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger. Hardeeharhar.
I’ve never known a President in my lifetime who hasn’t been relentlessly lampooned by the mainstream news and entertainment media. In addition to the welcome comic relief, the ability to take wicked smart-assed jabs at the President has brought a measure of humility to the office and reminded us that we live in a democracy. Why the kid gloves with Obama…is it the economy…he’s too fragile?
Right on target.
Excellent post, hctomorrow. Thank you.
This is both funny and depressing.
We should start aa betting ring. Who’s the next heel. Then we’ll have the system calibrated. Nothing concerns the game players more than having their moves predicted.
I did not make myself clear. I am very concerned about voting, as you might note from a 2008 post of mine about Bruce Funk.
What I am saying is yep, I’m no Puritan and I am going to have a good laugh here! Why not? This piece is really about the theater than choosing which tickets to buy.
I’d love to see the “Filibuster Fantastic Four – Four Men Enter, One Rule Leaves!”
No worries. Dance tonight, fight tomorrow. Peace.
Ack. Sorry to abandon my own post everyone; my computer chose to catch a trojan at a particularly inopportune time.
Given that my antivirus autoupdates, that was particularly annoying.
Ah, you mean like the federation of the Republicans and the Green Party?
I think he’s kind of boring. The most memorable parody I’ve seen of him to date is the ‘The Rock Obama’ thing on SNL, and that’s more wish-fulfillment than humor at his expense.
Plus the comedic senses of a lot of the country probably atrophied under Bush, since he was so easy to mock.
I’ve always hated wrestling.
Kenji Shibuya
Ray Steevens
Pat Patterson
Pepper Gomez
Haystack Calhoun
Only, I stopped watching that at age 11.
Sadly, the charade has continued amongst our leaders ever since.
Great analogy and spot on . . . fun, too. Thanks to the author!
I respect you tons, however…
You keep pushing that, and it’s not true in all cases, states and chapters.
One of my favorite people is my neighbor up the street is Claire Ryder, co-chair of the Greens here in Colorado.
She’d no sooner take a Republican dollar than poison. I’ll continue to support her efforts like this back in 2007.
I did skip the caucus, but voted Obama as reason dictated. Nonetheless, smeers against the Greens in general really aren’t warranted.
Could be worse. I know someone who had their hard drive die the other day. They were only backing it up once a week, too, even though they were doing all their work on it.
I’m terrible about good backups. Though most of my important stuff is on more than one computer, it’s not very consistent. I’m going to do a backup of this laptop tomorrow though, once I’m sure it’s all squeaky clean… I’m lucky enough to have a spare drive still in the antistatic bag, so I’ll put all the precious stuff on that and move it offsite to be extra paranoid.
Stupid trojans.
Great post, hc, but I think Rusty1776 post yesterday(?), even more than John’s writers, nailed these cabrones — forgive my spanish. His White Castle diary is magnificent. If y’all get a chance and can find it, do give it a read.
Bruno Sammartino! We want Bruno Sammartino! If anyone can save the public option, the Abruzzi Strongboy can!
Oh I read it and liked it a lot. I think the posts address different things though; reducing us all to serfs might be the goal, but the method used to get there is more modern than it was in feudalism. Nobody much cared about keeping the serfs entertained, let alone tricking them into voting against their interests, back then.
These days they have to convince the serfs to renew their servitude every couple of years, and in that, the two major American political parties have been very successful.
write posts more often, if you have the time and a healthy computer. you’re good.
Mick Foley was my all time favorite. He was on the Daily Show a few months back actually, offering to beat the tar out of anyone who harassed a middle school gay rights activist.
You raise some interesting points. Schor’s The Overworked American, The Disappearance of Leisure was a genuine surprise for me. There was actually quite a bit of entertaining going on and leisure time to boot depending the exact target period to which one refers. But I digress, your post is powerful and I am glad to have found it this evening.
Shoot, so interesting, hctomorrow. Many of the 1970′s and 1980′s anthropologists/archaeologists became socially radicalized as they were performing exhumations of ancient burial sites and found that the *common* laborers of 800 years past showed less physical trauma and signs of far better health than the indigenous people helping them on their digs. I think that is from The Children of Cain, Rosenberg(?).
In central America
This is way OT, but you might mention SpinRite to your friend with the failed hard drive.
http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm
You’re right! I had been using Shakespeare as a metaphor, ie., “who gets to play Iago”, etc., but wrestling is more on point.
Wrestling is Fake – So is Politics by the Southern Avenger
So, what’s the line on Pelosi v. Bunning? Remember, Nancy has fingernails and Bunning is nearly blind.
I find it grimly amusing to see the light bulbs turning on over the heads of liberals who thought that huge Democratic majorities in Congress and control of the WH meant the era of progress had finally dawned.
But think back to the Cheney/Bush Regime — and even to the Clinton years. How many times did the same cast of characters betray their own country and party to the GOP? How could anyone have thought those leopards would change their spots just because Democrats won a couple of elections in a row?
From 2004-2006 there was a burgeoning movement to reform the Democratic party from within. But then the easy path of trusting those who had been the targets of reform was taken — only to lead to more of the same betrayal.
People for progress lost their chance through inaction to have someone ready to claim the Bayh nomination in OH when he quit. How many more chances will be squandered to challenge the corrupt who have been so naively expected (to the point of delusion) to deliver on the Democratic Party’s own platform?
With respect to the Southern Avenger, I don’t think that Hannity, Coulter et al believe much of what they’re saying. They’re just the right wing version of the lefty ring announcers I described in my piece – which explains how neatly they fell into line, as SA ably notices in his youtube video. He does seem to consider that possibility.
There are legitimate activist groups in this country, though they’re few in number. The ACLU is a handy example – they sue the crap out of every Federal Administration. They’ve been putting both barrels at Obama over his continuation of Bush policies, and it’s a good thing too.
Some of the other stuff in that video… eh, I really dunno. Bush being more liberal than Clinton? That’s an extraordinary claim. I disagree that the outcome is predetermined, too. I think that the Democratic and Republican parties really are rivals, and really do want to beat each other, in the same way that powerful members of any oligarchy want to turn it into a dictatorship. Just because they represent the same core interests that doesn’t mean they want to be friends. Wellpoint and Aetna are good buddies when it comes to beating HCR, but given the chance they’d put a knife in the other’s back in a heartbeat. That’s basically how I look at the Dem vs. Republican situation these days.
Still, an interesting video.
I’d bet on Pelosi. Bunning is past the point on the crazy spectrum where it makes you more dangerous as a fighter. He’s so far out there that you could probably yell ‘Look, a Communist Lizard Man from Rigel-7!’ and when he’s frantically searching the room for reptile invaders, hit him over the back of the head.
I caught that Jon Stewart bit the other day. Then after reading your post (which I enjoyed, btw), I was reminded of that video I had seen some time ago. So I thought I would share. It is all so much theater, afterall. So much a public performance. Pretty sad really.
This is better analysis than TPM or 538 any day.
WIN
Pelosi’s got those bug eyes, too.
*shiver*
I think there are good politicians in the mix too. Just not that many.
It all can be pretty depressing, can’t it? Heh.
Oh yeah. She has the death stare. When that idiot Joe Wilson yelled ‘You lie’ at Obama, I swear she could have turned Wilson to stone with the look she used, if not for the distance and the many witnesses.
Pelosi’s part Gorgon. I wouldn’t fight her without a mirror.
Great analogy! And wouldn’t it be ironic for all of us int-ay-lectuals who look down on wrestling as fake, and shake our heads at its fans, to find we’ve been duped on this level for so long?
I got bored with wrestling eventually, but it’s really not as dumb as people make it out to be. It’s a really wacky, violent soap opera. It depends a lot on the performers whether a person will like it or not, and it’s definitely a social thing. Wrestling’s ten times more fun to watch with some friends.
Compared to a lot of reality television though, pro-wrestling is high art.
Brilliant! Beautiful! I love it. Now that explains politics in terms plain for all to see. Much obliged, hctomorrow. I’d love to see more running commentary on politics as pro-wrestling. It puts the power of myth front-and-center, making full use of its powers to reveal and conceal the Truth.
davidd @54, that’s what I’m saying. We think ourselves immune to such tawdry tricks, when in fact, our arrogance makes us all the more easy to jack to hell and stick with the bill in every way.